Isolation
by Frosty Autumn
Summary: When the doors close behind Elsa at the end of "Let It Go", we don't see her again until Anna makes the journey up the mountain to find her. What did Elsa do during all that time? She simply couldn't sit and stare at the wall for the rest of her life. A little home decoration to ease her solitude was in order. ONE-SHOT


Contrary to how the nature of her power would appear, the cold never stung, never hurt. Frost-ridden fingertips were normal cause for alarm, but all she could ever feel was a stiffening, icy layer spreading. At times Elsa found herself almost pining to feel the pain of cold just like everyone else, just to be normal.

That wasn't to say that she was immune to the difference between heat and cold. Most assuredly she could still feel temperatures rise and fall, her skin still warmed beside castle fires and cooled in deep winter, but when it came to her power seeping through her fingertips, it merely felt like a pleasantly cool tingle crawling in her bones. Far from the kind of chill that beckoned the need to get warm.

Elsa walked away from the balcony to what she supposed was the ice palace's ballroom—which was sure to be just as unused as the one back in Arendelle. The peachy-pink glow of sunrise lit the entire castle in a gorgeous light, warming bits and corners of constant gloomy blue. The clicking of her crystalline shoes echoed desolately, solidifying her knowledge that the place was completely devoid of anybody but herself. Exactly the way things had to be. With her train of gossamer floating behind her, she stood in the center of the grand room, underneath the enormous sparkling chandelier.

Opening her palm, a mist of white flakes swirled in the air. A smile threatened her stony face. Propelled by her hand, she shot two snow streamers into the air that burst like fireworks. The after-effect made them curl into beautiful shapes, compelling Elsa to do it again, just to witness the beauty a second time. Years of conditioning kept her creativity tame, but the release was exhilerating.

_Let it go, let it go..._she coached herself in small wonderment. Her grim facade cracked and her face slowly lit up.

It was as though her powers were a stream that she had blocked off during childhood. At times the current was too strong and water would seep through cracks in the barrier, but now, far away from people who could get hurt by it, the stream was able to flow freely once again. Elsa constantly worried about build-up, that if she was somehow able to stem the flow of her power, the pressure would mount and mount until it released into one huge wintery explosion. For the first time, Elsa finally felt like she was in control.

She knew her ability couldn't simply be emptied out of her (she had tried before, oh how she tried), that it could go on forever in a neverending current if it were somehow possible to go the rest of her life without sleep.

Elsa lowered her hands, stopping for the time being. Snowflakes fluttered down in a shower all around her. With a sigh of heavy acceptance, she took in the surroundings of her new home.

Day one of forever began now.

* * *

><p>Every single room of the palace was empty. Elsa sought to entertain herself by assigning certain ones a theme or use, creating the appropriate furniture and fixtures for each. Her work was purposely slow and meticulous, half attention to detail and half wasting as many minutes as she could, for this new hobby would be one of the few things that would keep her occupied for decades to come.<p>

Manipulating her hands, she conjured an ornate, decorative standing mirror, bordered in a swirly frame. The ice was a poor reflector, warping her features and leaving the details of her face hazy.

* * *

><p>Elsa sat on the floor, leaning her head back on the slick wall. To Arendelle's royal standards, sitting on the floor would have been most undignified of a princess—or queen since the coronation, she reminded herself—but when one ruled over nothing but frozen water, proper custom seemed like less of an absolute necessity.<p>

Still, out of habit she continued to carry herself with a queenly stance.

She glanced about in this particular room ponderingly. It wasn't overly big, the ceiling wasn't very high, and it was perfectly square. Usually an idea for a theme came to her head with little effort as soon as she entered the door, but this one was proving to be a little more stubborn. She thought to leave and return to it later, but reminded herself that she had all the time in the world, there was no rush.

A pang in her heart reminded her of Anna. Her sister would have known what to do with the space, her imagination could rival even the greatest storytellers Arendelle had to offer. Elsa of course knew this first-hand by their adventures as young girls and the amazing things they had built, before the accident that forced away Anna's memories.

Elsa suddenly had her idea. Standing up, her fingertips already crackling with bluish frost, she got to work. Starting from the bottom up, Elsa began recreating Anna's form in sparkling ice, taking reference from the last time she saw her. Ice-Anna wore her off-the-shoulder coronation dress in mid-twirl, and a dazzling grin on her face, happy that the castle gates were finally opening. It wasn't Anna's fault, Elsa knew, guilt flooding her heart. Anna was just so excited to see the outside world again that she got impulsive. Too impulsive.

On Ice-Anna's left side, Elsa spun her hands and built a taller figure, one with exquisite posture and broad shoulders; their father, the King. It was only when Elsa began his form that she realised the complications in re-creating her father's image: her sister was still fresh in her mind, but, sadly, her parents were not.

Three years...

Elsa struggled to remember every detail of their faces, scared that she had forgotten them. While struggling to work out the contours of her father's facial structure, her fear caused her concentration to slip several times, leading her to accidently make his nose too big or his eyes too far apart. She was losing control again.

Taking a deep breath to calm herself, she placed her hands on the ice figure's cheeks, closed her eyes, and bowed her head, concentrating on one specific memory of her father; as he lowered on one knee in front of her, his understanding expression, loving and sympathetic to his eldest daughter's plight. Elsa felt her power settle down in her body. With the picture firmly in her mind, she opened her eyes and started working again, this time with a relaxed approach.

The figure was looking more and more like her father with every tweak.

Once complete, Elsa shifted to Anna's right side and began work on their mother. Their meek but immensely generous, quietly beautiful mother.

In the end, her parents took ten times as long as Anna, but the result was worth it. Standing back to take in her family as a whole, Elsa admired her handiwork. It was as though the King and Queen had never gone away, they were simply encased in ice and back here with their daughter.

Elsa didn't need an ice statue of herself to complete the set. She already was one.

* * *

><p>Elsa took to visiting the Sculpture Room once or twice per day, sometimes more if she was feeling particularly lonely. She simply sat against the wall and let herself get lost in her own thoughts, wondering what Anna was doing now. Probably planning her wedding.<p>

"Elsa?"

Anna's voice. Elsa blinked, shifting a glance at the Ice-Anna statue. It hadn't spoken, she hadn't gotten to that point of loneliness yet, but solitude had a way of turning up the volume of her memories, sometimes conjuring her sister's voice.

"Elsa?" called Anna, this time with a different tone.

Elsa lifted her head. The voice was almost distant, but not so far away that she had to strain to hear it.

"Anna?" she said hesitantly.

Light footsteps echoed beyond the open door of the Sculpture Room, down in the entrance foyer with the double staircase.

She felt it. For the first time since fleeing Arendelle, there was warmth in Elsa's body.

In her heart.

Anna had brought it with her.

Elsa smiled for a single second, but her face fell in realization. Anna would have to leave with it again because she was not going to stay. Elsa couldn't let her. Anna had a chance to enjoy the kingdom now that it was open to her. Elsa could not. She never would.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: So I went to go see Frozen last night (finally, right? I'm such a huge Disney fan, I don't know why I waited so long) and I somehow wrote 25% of this last night and the rest today, about seven hours altogether. If you know me, that's pretty much impossible, I take **_**ages**_** to write anything. I guess I was inspired. But back to Frozen, I absolutely loved it! It was **_**gorgeous**_** to look at, it had so many funny moments, and also plenty of sweet, touching moments. An entirely worthy addition to Disney's animated feature list.  
><strong>  
><strong>But there were a few tiny, little things that I still wondered about when I left the theater. I wish Disney had added just at least two more minutes of screen time and used them to fit in just a little more development for Elsa (and on a different note, Hans), to drive home her isolation in the ice palace, because we never saw much of her in there. Just a quick cut to her leaning against a pillar and closing her eyes in defeat and then cutting back to Anna scaling the mountain would have been enough for me.<strong>  
><strong>Also, I wondered about Elsa's sensitivity to heat and cold, which is what sparked this idea when combined back-to-back with my thoughts on what Elsa did in the time between.<strong>

_**But**_ **the movie was still excellent, I suppose I'll get over it.**

**Sorry if the dialogue completely wrong in the scene where Anna first steps into the ice palace, I'm working on memory. If it is wrong, don't worry, once the DVD releases and I watch the movie again, I'll be sure to fix it! :D**


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